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The title refers to the conceptual quality of being similar, as a kind of resemblance between both procedures.

The term Organismic Sets described a puzzling and difficult area of research that apparently appears nowadays forgotten, for recent publications cannot be pinpointed. The objective here intends to find out what this subject deals with, not trying to go deeper in its intrincacies, for it would exceed by far the possibilities of the article. Instead, the article only calls the attention and perhaps stimulates the young mathematically oriented researcher.

Numbers, numbers, they endessly fill out our life… weight, height and many other more hidden body attributes, too, like chronobiological parameters! Fat and thin woman, by Lyudmyla Kharlamova

Perceptions • Quarante ans, c’est la vieillesse de la jeunesse, mais cinquante ans, c’est la jeunesse de la vieillesse. • Forty is the old age of youth, while fifty is the youth of old age. • Vierzig ist das hohe Alter der Jugend, wahrend funfzig ist die Jugend des Alters. • Quaranta e la vecchiaia della giovinezza, mentre cinquanta e la gioventu di vecchiaia. • Los cuarenta son vejez para la juventud, y los cincuenta se sienten como juventud para la vejez. —Victor Marie Hugo (1802–1885)

Perhaps, in the Far Distant back of times, man in his need to somewhat quantify what he had collected to survive (animals or plants or fruits), needed to count, and his own fingers and toes became a good first instrument always available, so that easily got to 20 units. And his system was digital, quite advanced, in contrast with the slide rule we try to deal with herein, which is analogical, so that the figure above has nothing to do with the slide rule. An apology is kindly offered to the reader for the unintended mixture we got in.

Examines ways to improve communications amongst groups of populations where language can be disparate. The objectives set herein are three: First, to briefly go over a few linguistic aspects; Second, to visit that wonderful man-made simple tongue, Esperanto; and three, to improve this situation using biomedical applications and techniques.

In very old days past, I used to play piano, but not anymore. Age wore out the fingers, but they are not rusty .

It is said that time marches on, and one thing is certain: Hearing loss marches right along with it.1 The recorded history of hearing loss goes back hundreds of years, and attempts to correct hearing loss have been in existence since the very first person to cup a hand behind one ear. The good news is hearing aids and other assistive listening devices have come a long way since the first rudimentary attempts at improving hearing. Yes, hearing aid technology is still evolving and is still far from perfect. Well, nothing is perfect in life, as perfection is always an unreachable limit.

Music has been prevalent in different societies and cultures since ancient times. It is an expression of human deeds, identity, wishes, understanding of the world, the culture and norms of each society, as well as interpersonal relations within the family and with the external world. The sounds different musical instruments produce affect human well-being. Moreover, music is also a human need, and, like language, it is another inborn communication means, very close to the basic physiological drives.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), a transcendental German philosopher, is best known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation or, in German, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (expanded in 1844), wherein he characterizes the phenomenal world as the product of a blind and insatiable metaphysical will. Such a phenomenal world is the world as it appears to human beings, who are structured by their own understanding. It is the world as experienced, as opposed to the world of things-in-themselves. In turn, the metaphysical will tries to explain the fundamental nature of being and the world of experience. The main objective of this article is to find in Schopenhauer’s momentous opera magna, already more than 150 years old, any element historically and/or epistemologically related to the current concepts of bioengineering or biomedical engineering and/or biotechnology.

Recognition of true merits may not be a common virtue of the human being, as often achievements are either forgotten, not seen or just buried into oblivion. History of science has plenty of examples, occasionally tainted by endless and useless accusations or even lawsuits leading nowhere.

The relationship among cardiac pacemakers is characterized by the fact that one pacemaker is usually dominant and all the others are subsidiary. The sinoatrial node acts as the dominant pacemaker, and all other potential pacemaker tissues are discharged by a conducted impulse before their respective diastolic depolarizations attain threshold. These pacemakers are called subsidiary to emphasize the fact that, under normal circumstances, they are engaged in conducting impulses, but, under abnormal circumstances, they may become actual pacemakers.

Presents a historical persective on the research and development of cardiac pacemaker technology.

Medical science developed in tandem with the evolution of biological species and their associated diseases. Because of the close interaction between humans and other animals, even those in the wild, taking care of the former also means caring for the latter. Several scientific forerunners delved into animals' anatomical and physiological secrets in their quest to better understand animal biology and functions, thereby laying the foundation for animal medicine. Here, I briefly explore the long and complex road that led to the current state of veterinary science and provide a few examples of its present standing. (Contributions from the ancient world and eastern countries are not considered, as they represent a different area of interest.).

Medicine aims toward restoring, maintaining, and improving human health, and engineering aims toward restoring, maintaining and improving human wellness. Both disciplines apply knowledge from science and technology at large to accomplish such objectives. Bioengineering, also called biomedical engineering, is defined as the application of engineering principles and techniques to problems in medicine and biology (always with restoration, maintenance, and improvement in mind), which now also includes veterinary medicine, and the environment in general.

Recently, during the Christmas season, a friend of mine visited me and, sneaking a look at my bookshelves, found two rather old Nikola Tesla biographies, which I had used to prepare a "Retrospectroscope" column for the then-named IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Magazine when our dear friend Alvin Wald was its editor-inchief [2]. Eighteen years have elapsed since then; soon, the idea came up of revamping the article. Cynthia Weber, the magazine's current associate editor, considered it acceptable, and here is the new note divided in two parts: that is, a slightly revised version of the original article followed by new material, including some quite interesting information regarding Tesla's homes and laboratories. On top of this, Tesla is not devoid of a science fiction touch, as mentioned at the end.

The origins of convolution and its further and rather complex historical development were dealt with in detail by Alejandro Dominguez in a previous article [1]. We saw there that it can be traced back to the middle of the 18th century; however, its modern form and use are not more than 50 or 60 years old.

A previous "Retrospectroscope" note, published early in 2014, dealt with spirometry: it described many apparatuses used to measure the volume of inhaled and exhaled air that results from breathing [1]. Such machines, when adequately modified, are also able to measure the rate at which work is produced (specifically by an animal or a human being). Metabolism in that sense is the term used by physiologists and physicians, a word that in Greek, metabolismos, means "change" or "overthrow," in the sense of breaking down material, as in burning some stuff.

Muscle synergies have been proposed to be a modular organization for muscle coordination that map high-level task goals, or motor intentions, into motor actions. Muscle synergies and other types of modular organization have been used to explain muscle coordination during a variety of motor behaviors in many different species. In some instances, new synergies may emerge when a new motor task is presented and the recruitment of the synergies may be altered. Here, we used a database to investigate muscle activity of the right hand during seven distinct limb motions in order to extract muscle synergies: hand open, hand close, supination, pronation, wrist flexion, wrist extension, and rest. Database content EMG signals collected from seven sites on the forearm and one site on the bicep, with an electrode placed on the wrist to provide a common ground reference. Classification scheme is based on the synergies between a functional group of muscles. The muscular synergy is evaluated using different techniques like the normalized power spectral densities (PSD), the cross-correlation matrix of muscular force (estimated through the root mean square (RMS) value of EMG amplitude) and the intermuscular coherence between different sets of muscles. We investigate the relationship between muscle synergy recruitment and functional motor outputs and hypothesized that a common pool of muscle synergies producing consistent task-level biomechanical functions is used to generate different motor behaviors.

A biological pacemaker is one or more types of cellular components that, when implanted into certain regions of the heart, produce electrical stimuli that mimic that of the body’s natural pacemaker cells. Somatic gene transfer, cell fusion, or cell transplantation provide a way to realize it as somatic reprogramming strategies, which involve transfer of genes encoding transcription factors to transform working myocardium into a surrogate sinoatrial node, are furthest along in the possibilities. The idea, no doubt, is bright and appealing. The objective herein intends to dig into the subject trying to find out how realizable it really is.

This paper presents a software specially designed for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and its evaluation with a selected group of patients. The software is simple, easy to manage, and with a friendly interface; it has activities that stimulate the cognitive and motor development. The Fitt´s law and the Scale Usability System were used to evaluate the performance of the software, carried out with a group of children suffering ASD that attend phonoaudiology therapies at the state hospital. The results are very encouraging because the children were interested using the software and also the evaluation tests allow the quantification of the performance, showing better coefficients with the SicaaKids environment than with the Windows® desktop. Fil: Pérez Berenguer, María Elisa. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Electrónica y Automática. Gabinete de Tecnología Médica; Argentina Fil: Ponce, Sergio Damián. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional; Argentina Fil: Piccinini, David J.. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional; Argentina Fil: Lopez, Natalia. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Electrónica y Automática. Gabinete de Tecnología Médica; Argentina Fil: Valentinuzzi, Maximo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Tucumán; Argentina

Discusses the ability to display physiological medical records that can be projected on a Screen.Presents the history of this equipment, beginning with Carl Ludwig. Ludwig (1816–1895), was the first to bring forward a scripture from the heart—the arterial blood pressure record—in 1847, by means of the kymograph [2]. The instrument soon spread throughout the world, becoming a must in any self-respected physiology laboratory, both as a teaching and research tool, persisting well into the mid-20th century. Discusses the development of this technology and reports on applications for its use.

Explores the topic of perception, using the dance of the Tango, as a metaphor to explain how a complex set of music, instruments, and human emotions and experiences can be used by bioengineers to design and create new forms of technology to benefit mankind. How our central nervous system (CNS) decides that a given combination of sounds causes pleasure or not is a question with no definite answer yet and is not the intended subject herein. This column only aims at showing how the tango, a tiny subset of the overall musical world, followed a path since its inception in the 1870s or 1880s that moved from rather simple consonant melodies to highly elaborated compositions rich in all sort of well-handled consonant–dissonant combinations, many cadences to give musical phrases a distinctive ending or a sense of conclusion, adequate key conversions or shifts, including rhythmic changes or even lack of rhythm.

The word analogy is a synonym of likeness, resemblance, similitude, or affinity and involves two concepts being placed side by side, as in a comparison [1]. The workings of nature and those of human societies are amenable to such analogous comparison-even though the evolution of the natural world obviously spans millions of years [2], while human societies are much younger, relatively puppies by comparison. This article considers two interesting examples from these two realms that show remarkable similarities (possibly a result of sheer chance), i.e., a circulatory brain anastomosis, the circle of Willis (CW), and modern power transmission-distribution systems in the ring arrangement. Remember that electric networks handle the flow of charges [say, in coulombs per second (C/s) or electric charge per unit time, which is current), whereas hydraulic systems deal with fluid flow [say, in liters per minutes (L/min) or volume/unit time or fluid mass/unit time]. Hence, these systems too are analogous, a well-known fact often mentioned by instructors of electrical engineering courses.

Background. The rehabilitation process is a fundamental stage for recovery of people's capabilities. However, the evaluation of the process is performed by physiatrists and medical doctors, mostly based on their observations, that is, a subjective appreciation of the patient's evolution. This paper proposes a tracking platform of the movement made by an individual's upper limb using Kinect sensor(s) to be applied for the patient during the rehabilitation process. The main contribution is the development of quantifying software and the statistical validation of its performance, repeatability, and clinical use in the rehabilitation process. Methods. The software determines joint angles and upper limb trajectories for the construction of a specific rehabilitation protocol and quantifies the treatment evolution. In turn, the information is presented via a graphical interface that allows the recording, storage, and report of the patient's data. For clinical purposes, the software information is statistically validated with three different methodologies, comparing the measures with a goniometer in terms of agreement and repeatability. Results. The agreement of joint angles measured with the proposed software and goniometer is evaluated with Bland-Altman plots; all measurements fell well within the limits of agreement, meaning interchangeability of both techniques. Additionally, the results of Bland-Altman analysis of repeatability show 95% confidence. Finally, the physiotherapists' qualitative assessment shows encouraging results for the clinical use. Conclusion. The main conclusion is that the software is capable of offering a clinical history of the patient and is useful for quantification of the rehabilitation success. The simplicity, low cost, and visualization possibilities enhance the use of the software Kinect for rehabilitation and other applications, and the expert's opinion endorses the choice of our approach for clinical practice. Comparison of the new measurement technique with established goniometric methods determines that the proposed software agrees sufficiently to be used interchangeably. Fil: López Celani, Natalia Martina. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Electrónica y Automática. Gabinete de Tecnología Médica; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan; Argentina Fil: Pérez Berenguer, María Elisa. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Electrónica y Automática. Gabinete de Tecnología Médica; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan; Argentina Fil: Tello, Emanuel Bienvenido. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Electrónica y Automática. Gabinete de Tecnología Médica; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan; Argentina Fil: Rodrigo, Alejandro. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Electrónica y Automática. Gabinete de Tecnología Médica; Argentina Fil: Valentinuzzi, Maximo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet Noa Sur. Instituto Superior de Investigaciones Biológicas. Grupo de Investigación y Desarrollo del Noroeste Argentino | Universidad Nacional de Tucumán. Instituto Superior de Investigaciones Biológicas. Grupo de Investigación y Desarrollo del Noroeste Argentino; Argentina

The main objective of this column is to historically connect the pressure–volume diagram (PVD) of the heat mechanical engines and that of the heart—a natural chemical engine—both types being generators of useful work.

Music, along with its attached rhythm, has been with man for centuries, developing and evolving along with him. Its influence on human behavior and mood can reach levels whose limits are still unknown, especially in everything related to perception, where the whole nervous system is involved. Thus, physiology and psychology become strongly connected areas, while technology, through, for example, the production of music by electronic means, appears as a new unexpected ingredient that traditional composers and musicians of older times could not imagine. Obviously, bioengineering and its multiple branches are not absent either [1]?[4]. The literature is enormous with several specialized journals. When one looks back in time at the evolution of this complex area, the appearance of some kind of sudden jump (as a step function), which took place within a relatively recent short interval, is evident: music is now much more than what it used to be, and rhythm has made a step forward as if resurrecting and renewing the ancient Indian or African drums.

is a difference of elapsed time between two events as measured by observers either moving relative to each other or differently situated from gravita -tional fields [1], [2]. It means that astro-nauts return from space having aged less than those who remained on Earth; to the traveling party, those staying at home are living faster, while to those who stood still, their counterparts in motion lived at a slower rate. The theory predicts such behavior, and experiments have dem-onstrated it beyond doubt. The phenom-enon is due to differences in velocity and in gravity (and it is called time dilation because the moving clock ticks slower). The effect would be greater if the astro-nauts were traveling nearer to the speed of light (approximately 300,000 km/s). Both factors—gravity and relative veloc-ity—are the culprits and actually opposed one another.Albert Eintein’s theory briefly states [3], [4]:1) In special relativity (hypothetically, far from all gravitational masses), clocks that are moving with respect to an inertial system of observation run slower. This effect is described by the Lorentz transformation.2) In general relativity, clocks within a gravitational field (as in closer prox-imity to a planet) are also found to run slower.The first paper by Einstein, published in 1905, introduced the special relativity theory (SRT), and the second one, pub-lished in 1916, dealt with the much more difficult general relativity theory (GRT).The Lorentz transformation (named for Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, 1853–1928) explains how the speed of light is indepen-dent of the reference frame. Lorentz shared the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics with Pieter Zeeman (1865–1943) for the discovery and theoretical explanation of the Zeeman effect (the splitting of a spectral line into several components in the presence of a static magnetic field). The transformation describes how measurements of space and time by two observers are related, reflect-ing the fact that observers moving at dif-ferent velocities may measure different distances and elapsed times. It was derived well before special relativity.The first postulate of the TR, or prin -ciple of relativity, states that the laws of physics are the same in all inertial frames of reference. The speed of light

A 12-yr-old child, with a history of gestational Erb-Duchenne palsy and, later, musculoskeletal injuries in the left arm caused by a car accident, inspired the design of a customized exoskeleton-like device. Such piece, intended for rehabilitation, has one degree of freedom because the exercise routine involves elbow flexion-extension, which was indicated for the damaged muscular group. The device has two functioning modes, passive and assisted, in which the patient can trigger the movement by a biceps contraction, thus promoting the active role of the user in the rehabilitation process. The results were evaluated in terms of qualitative measures of the biceps and the triceps performed by the medical staff and by a questionnaire related to functional activities of the upper limb. A significant improvement in the arm movement and elbow angle was observed after 3 mos of assisted therapy, complementary to conventional exercises. In conclusion, a simple and low-cost device was designed and tested to complement the rehabilitation process of a pediatric patient with physical impairment. Fil: López Celani, Natalia Martina. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Electrónica y Automática. Gabinete de Tecnología Médica; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina Fil: de Diego, Nicolás. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Electrónica y Automática. Gabinete de Tecnología Médica; Argentina Fil: Hernández, Rafael. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Electrónica y Automática. Gabinete de Tecnología Médica; Argentina Fil: Pérez, Elisa. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Electrónica y Automática. Gabinete de Tecnología Médica; Argentina Fil: Ensinck, Gustavo. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Electrónica y Automática. Gabinete de Tecnología Médica; Argentina Fil: Valentinuzzi, Maximo. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Electrónica y Automática. Gabinete de Tecnología Médica; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina

A graph presents a comparison of a chalice to the female uterus. To start, observe the clear resemblance of both to an inverted pyramid shape. Let us now review the role of women in the ancient Jewish-Christian tradition. The Old Testament (OT), the first part of the Christian Bible, is based primarily on the Hebrew scriptures (or Tanakh). The New Testament collects later writings. In the OT, the book of Esther relates the story of a Hebrew woman in Persia who thwarted a genocide of her people, while the book of Ruth tells of a woman who married into an Israelite family and converted to Judaism. Ruth is the great-grandmother of King David and, hence, an ancestor of the Messiah.

Education is no doubt the foundation of any healthy society. When it is lacking or substandard in quality, all sorts of misery may arise, from poverty and disease to outright delinquency and destructive (or even self-destructive) behavior. The daily news from all around this troubled world often appalls and frightens us: such atrocious and disgraceful behavior generates a vicious cycle that serves to stir up even greater depravity. It is my contention that most, if not all, of these barbarities could be prevented if more people were provided the opportunity for a well-rounded, thoughtfully conceived education [1].

In Latin, spirare means to breathe; hence, spirometry deals with the measurement of breath, which is the most common way to evaluate pulmonary function. The volume or flow of inhaled or exhaled air is so quantified, offering values that permit an assessment of respiratory performance in health and disease. Asthma, emphysema, pulmonary fibrosis, and obstructive lung pathologies can be gauged in their respective stages. Spirometry is an old procedure still in use that is simple and inexpensive but highly significant in health care.

Background: This work evaluates the vectorcardiographic dynamic changes in ischemic patients before and during Percutaneous Transluminal Coronary Angioplasty (PTCA). Methods: Four QRS-loop parameters were computed in 51 ischemic and 52 healthy subjects with the objective of assessing the vectorcardiographic differences between both groups: maximum vector magnitude (QRSmVM), planar area (QRSPA), maximum distance between centroid and loop (QRSmDCL) and perimeter (QRSP).The conventional ST-change vector magnitude (STCVM), QRS-vector difference (QRSVD) and spatial ventricular gradient (SVG) were also calculated. Results: Statistical minute-by-minute PTCA comparison against a healthy population showed that ischemic patients monitoring is greatly enhanced when all the QRS-loop parameters, in combination with the standard STCVM, QRSVD and SVG indexes, are used in the classification. Sensitivity and Specificity, in turn, reached rather high values, 95.4% and 95.2%, respectively. Conclusions: These new vectorcardiographic set of complementary QRS-loop parameters, when combined with the classics STCVM, QRSVD and SVG indexes, increase sensitivity and specificity for acute ischemia monitoring. Fil: Correa Prado, Raul Oscar. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingenieria. Departamento de Electronica y Automatica. Gabinete de Tecnologia Medica; Argentina Fil: Arini, Pedro David. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Saavedra 15. Instituto Argentino de Matemática; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingenieria. Instituto de Ingeniería Biomédica; Argentina Fil: Correa Prado, Lorena Sabrina. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingenieria. Departamento de Electronica y Automatica. Gabinete de Tecnologia Medica; Argentina Fil: Valentinuzzi, Maximo. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingenieria. Instituto de Ingeniería Biomédica; Argentina Fil: Laciar Leber, Eric. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingenieria. Departamento de Electronica y Automatica. Gabinete de Tecnologia Medica; Argentina